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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The 36 Dramatic Situations

Over the centuries millions of stories have been told,
written, acted out or filmed. So there must be millions of plots, yes?
Countless ways for characters to unfold their actions. After all, for every
path chosen, there are dozens left behind.

And yet, you would be wrong. Back in the late 1700’s, CarlosGozzi, an Italian playwright, condensed the plots of plays in an attempt to
find out just how many there were. For example: boy meets girl, boy loses girl,
boy gets girl back. In a nutshell, that’s the plot of every romance novel ever
written. It’s no secret. Think of your favorite romance in any genre. Bet it
can be boiled down to those three actions.

In the mid 1800’s, a Frenchman, Georges Polti, picked up the
task, examining the scripts of ancient Greek plays as well as the more modern
plays being performed on the French stage and determined that, in total, there
were only thirty-six dramatic situations. That’s it! Thirty-six core plots for
the millions of stories that existed.

I first found Polti’s work at a library book sale. There, in
the midst of all the Harlequins, detective stories and Star Trek novels (and
yes, I bought every single ST they had), sat this unassuming book. Thin volume,
had the word “dramatic” on the cover. I picked it up as my husband and I also
collect scripts (imagine an 18-foot long shelf with them so tightly packed you
can’t squeeze another one in and you have our collection thus far).

Of course, Polti’s book is not a script, but an analysis OF
scripts –and their plots. It has had a place of honor on my writer’s shelf ever
since. And I’m not alone.

Over the years, the book has become an invaluable tool for
writers looking to jump-start their writer’s block. It also has had people
searching for that elusive 37th situation. There must be more. There must!
Right?

When I first put this workshop together several years ago, I
found that someone had identified a
new situation and found references to it all over the Web. Unfortunately, I
cannot find attribution anywhere. So yes, a 37th Situation has been identified
(and is included below in the list). Now to find a 38th :).

Polti posed several questions all authors should ask, not
only of their own work, but of what is currently available in the marketplace.
Looking for the Next Big Topic/Genre? Perhaps we have a vision of the future in
these questions:

“Which are the
dramatic situations neglected by our own epoch, so faithful in repeating the
few most familiar? Which, on the other hand, are most in use today? Which are
the most neglected in each epoch, genre, school, author? What are the reasons
for these preferences?”

The book Polti wrote, The
36 Dramatic Situations, was translated into English in the early 20th
century and is available online. For your convenience, the list below lists the
basic plot device and then the characters required for that plot.

What are you waiting for? Read on – and write!

1. Supplication

a Persecutor; a Supplicant; a Power in authority, whose
decision is doubtful.

2. Deliverance

an Unfortunate; a Threatener; a Rescuer

3. Crime pursued by vengeance

an Avenger; a Criminal

4. Vengeance taken for kin upon kin

an Avenging Kinsman; Guilty Kinsman; remembrance of the
Victim; a Relative of both

2 comments:

Some websites say: the 37th dramatic situation is the mistaken identity, but the other some say: the 37th dramatic theme is the missing person (in the 37 plays of William Shakespeare)Which one you think, Diana?Another question: who did define (mistaken identity) as the 37th dramatic situation?